Samhain Publishing, $3.50, ISBN 1-59998-546-2
Romantic Suspense, 2007

I really like the basic premise of Jerri Drennen’s short story Inventing the Abbotts. Ava Stanton is a hot-trot agent who eats men for dinner in her free time. Thorn Abbott is the Q to Ava’s James Bond – he’s the computer guy whom Ava sees as some kind of brother figure even as he’s having all kinds of sexual fantasies about her. Their latest mission will see Thorn taking off his glasses – that’s all he has to do in this story to turn into a hunk, mind you – and letting his inner Superman shine through to impress Ava.

Unfortunately, this story is riddled with silly sex that takes place at the most ridiculous moments (the “Oh no, I hope the enemies at our tail don’t catch up with us, at least until we’ve had our fun!” variety) and the characters spend way too much time lusting after each other when they are not shagging. What happened to the plot? The plot is reduced to being mere filler between the sexier scenes in the story. Were not for their allies in this story, Ava and Thorn would have literally screwed themselves into being alligator food.

Clearly, we need a reinvention of sorts because this just will not do.